n never
meditated in earnest, taking the indentures; indeed, the desk was
always locked--it held other documents more valuable than hers--and
Samuel Wales carried the key in his waistcoat-pocket.

She went to a dame's school, three months every year. Samuel Wales
carted half a cord of wood to pay for her schooling, and she learned
to write and read in the New England Primer. Next to her, on the
split log bench, sat a little girl named Hannah French. The two
became fast friends. Hannah was an only child, pretty and delicate,
and very much petted by her parents. No long hard tasks were set
those soft little fingers, even in those old days when children
worked as well as their elders. Ann admired and loved Hannah, because
she had what she, herself, had not; and Hannah loved and pitied Ann
because she had not what she had. It was a sweet little friendship,
and would not have been, if Ann had not been free from envy and
Hannah humble and pitying.

When Ann told her what a long stint she had to do before school,
Hannah would shed sympathizing tears.

Ann, after a solemn promise of secrecy, told her about the indentures
one day. Hannah listened with round, serious eyes; her brown hair was
combed smoothly down over her ears. She was a veritable little
Puritan damsel herself.

"If I could only get the papers, I wouldn't have to mind her, and
work so hard," said Ann.

Hannah's eyes grew rounder. "Why, it would be sinful to take them!"
said she.

Ann's cheeks blazed under her wondering gaze, and she said no more.

When she was about eleven years old, one icy January day, Hannah
wanted her to go out and play on the ice after school. They had no
skates, but it was rare fun to slide. Ann went home and asked Mrs.
Polly's permission with a beating heart; she promised to do a double
stint next day, if she would let her go. But her mistress was
inexorable--work before play, she said, always; and Ann must not
forget that she was to be brought up to work; it was different with
her from what it was with Hannah French. Even this she meant kindly
enough, but Ann saw Hannah go away, and sat down to her spinning with
more fierce defiance in her heart than had ever been there before.
She had been unusually good, too, lately. She always was, during the
three months' schooling, with sober, gentle little Hannah French.

She had been spinning sulkily a while, and it was almost dark, when a
messenger came for her master and mistress to go